Mauapropisms

My journey in literacy was not a direct path. While I had learned to read and write words in school, knowing how to effectively transfer the thoughts and ideas in my head onto the page was (and continues to be) a struggle for me. Reading has and continues to be a struggle for me as I now know I have mild dyslexia and ADHD which went undiagnosed for most of my life. I didn’t get into reading until my early teens. My mother gave me a copy of Jurassic Park and insisted I read it, I agreed I would give it an honest try. It was the first book I couldn’t put down, I would stay up reading it at night and when I finished it, I was ready for a new book. The imaginative world and the themes and narratives of the story just enthralled me.

My father then gave me a copy of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, and while it was impactful of the time, it would be years before I could fully digest the narrative being exposed to me.

This then led to my first love of reading which was science fiction, fantasy, and history. In hindsight, I think those genre’s presented new and exciting worlds which kept my ADHD mind focused and driven to understand the world that was happening within its pages and how those fictional stories spoke to the real world and humanity. These stories also began to feed my own imagination and want to tell my own stories and perspectives.